I also noticed he wants the troops in soon, within the next six months. That’s a very quick push for new troops who need training, and for the logistics train to support them. Reserve and Guard units who have already been there will likely need to make up a large portion of the initial deployment, placing them overseas much sooner than anticipated. He wants them out in 18 months, about the time he’s running for re-election.

I’m not a general nor do I pretend to be a strategic thinker in this matters, but I’m seeing troop movements based upon election campaigns rather than fighting and winning wars. As for the troops themselves, their training and rotation needs do not seem to have been considered.

Boil it all down, he’s setting the stage to win an election and lose a war shortly afterwords.

– Max

1.) He didn’t say anywhere in the speech “now is the time . . .” . . . Not that I heard at least.
2.) No reference to the fierce urgency of now.

Oh, no wait. There actually IS a fierce urgency in this case unlike health care or global warming.

So, OK, just one more thing I liked.

I agree with everything you say about slavery, I’m just saying that I don’t think there’s really anywhere to go with it. It also “tactically” opens yourself up to the racism card in a manner the public would agree with and would thus let the left shut down everything you say on any topic. I know this is a Catch-22 but think this is the reality we currently live in. Like most things that can be understood by the public at large slavey has been stereotyped to a ridiculous degree as your links make painfully clear. But the overall result of the stereotyping, that slavery was an abomination, is generally truthful and I guess I find the negative consequences to be tolerable (not approvable) on balance. (Allowance provided for race baiters trying to fan the flames of white guilt and drive for reparations being admittedly a significant problem.)

Overall I’d rather pick my battles. The leftist stereotypings of Vietnam which are now the accepted storyline for example go to the point of not only being false in their conclusions but producing a massive reduction in the ability of the nation to get on the same page with the military in fights like Iraq and Afghanistan. They are thus something both wrong and dangerous and I would rather spend my time railing against those such problems.